Google services partially restored after experiencing a major outage

Google services crashed for users worldwide for the past few hours on Monday. The issues started at around 11:56 GMT/5:26 IST and affected users around the globe.Services including Gmail and Google Docs has been partially restored after experiencing a major outage in India and several other countries.

Google has updated that Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar and most other services hit by the outage has been restored for some users.

"Gmail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future," Google said in a statement.

A large number of YouTube users found problems in accessing the site and watching videos. Log-in issues were also reported by some users.

Services affected include Gmail, YouTube, and Play Store primarily, with users in India, SEA, Europe, and parts of the USA . Users complained that they are unable to sign in to any of these services.

The brief outage had a significant impact on the company's millions of users, many of whom rely on Google services for basic work apps such as email and calendars.

Users of Google Docs could continue to work if they had synced documents offline, but were unable to use any online features.

According to a BBC report, the crash also affected Google-connected smart devices, such as its Home speakers - leading some users to complain on social media of being unable to switch off some lights in their homes.

It also had a knock-on effect on other apps, with players of the smartphone game Pokémon Go, for example, reporting being unable to log in.

Despite the widespread outage, Google's service dashboard initially showed no errors - before switching to red status across all services.

"We're aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail," the statement said, with the word "Gmail" replaced by other services.

The cause of the problem is unclear. Google has been contacted for comment, but one spokesperson said they were unable to access their email during the outage, reports BBC.

According to the BBC report, such failures in Google's systems are rare, though a problem with some servers caused difficulties for United States users in June 2019.

Google was earlier hit by a significant outage in August this year, which also took down its suite of online services and YouTube.

(With inputs from IANS)